Evening Standard Comment: We need to get tough to clean up London’s air

The Mayor’s advice to Londoners today on avoiding air pollution highlights a serious issue. Levels of nitrogen dioxide on Oxford Street and other major thoroughfares are far in excess of legal limits. Campaigners estimate that air pollution causes around 7,500 deaths a year in London, roughly two-thirds of them due to particulate matter, the tiny specks of soot emitted by diesel exhausts. The Mayor says we should take steps to cut down our exposure to polluted air by, for example, walking or cycling for short journeys, and not leaving engines idling for long periods. But while these are sensible enough measures, London’s toxic air demands far more drastic solutions from government.

Transport is by far the biggest single contributor. The Mayor’s answer is to clean up London’s bus fleet, retire the oldest and most polluting taxis, and introduce an Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in the congestion charging zone in 2020. Drivers of most diesel and some petrol-engine vehicles will have to pay extra to enter the zone; taxis there will have to be zero-emission capable.

The difficulty is the timing and extent of the measures. Other European cities are moving faster to ban diesel cars, the biggest problem. We wait until 2020: the Mayor claims that the ULEZ will halve levels of nitrogen dioxide in the same year. That time frame is debatable, and depends on extra government and European funds. Campaigners predict that we will not meet European limits before 2030. And by definition, air pollution spreads beyond central London, with serious blackspots in places such as Brixton Road. The Mayor’s measures are a start — but we still need tougher action to clean up London’s air.

After prison

Our report today from HMP Isis, in Thamesmead, gives an idea of the dramatic effect that positive engagement with prisoners can have. As part of this paper’s Frontline London campaign on gangs and youth crime, three young men from HMP Isis — and two young women from Holloway prison in north London — will get backing for their social entrepreneurship ideas on release. Entrants have had to present their ideas to a Dragons’ Den-style panel of experts: business plans included landscape gardening, an eco-friendly cleaning service and a fitness boot camp. The winners get an £8,000 start-up grant, a business mentor, and a 10-month programme beginning after their release in May with our campaign partner, the School for Social Entrepreneurs.

The scheme, like other social entrepreneurship projects backed by our campaign, takes practical action to integrate gang members and other young criminals back into society. We know the damage gangs do to our city. But while tough enforcement by police and the courts is essential, it is not enough alone. Young offenders like the ones at Isis and Holloway will only reform if they have positive alternatives that give them a real stake in society. The winners’ excitement at being given that chance is testimony to the hope that such practical solutions bring.

Great Briton

The 50th anniversary today of Sir Winston Churchill’s funeral offers us a moment to remember Britain’s greatest 20th-century leader, and to reflect on the vast changes in the nation since his death. Britain in those black-and-white photos does look like another country. But Churchill’s strengths — his courage, tenacity and strength of character — are as admirable as ever, and helped save the nation in its darkest hour. If only we had leaders to match him today.